Part 74

There is no pleasure but that some pain is nearly allied to it.--Menander.

All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; 'tis like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.--Swift.

Fly the pleasure that bites to-morrow.--George Herbert.

Look upon pleasures not upon that side that is next the sun, or where they look beauteously, that is, as they come towards you to be enjoyed, for then they paint and smile, and dress themselves up in tinsel, and glass gems, and counterfeit imagery.--Jeremy Taylor.

Pleasure has its time; so, too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age attend to thy salvation.--Voltaire.

A man of pleasure is a man of pains.--Young.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.--Johnson.

What would we not give to still have in store the first blissful moment we ever enjoyed!--Rochepèdre.

Most pleasures embrace us but to strangle.--Montaigne.

~Poetry.~--Poetry is the apotheosis of sentiment.--Madame de Staël.

Poetry is the sister of sorrow. Every man that suffers and weeps is a poet; every tear is a verse, and every heart a poem.--Marc André.

Much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.--Shakespeare.

Poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a tender virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers other virgins--namely, all the other sciences--make it their business to enrich, polish, and adorn; and to her it belongs to make use of them all, and on her part to give a lustre to them all.--Cervantes.

Poetry is the overflowing of the soul.--Tuckerman.

Poetry is enthusiasm with wings of fire, it is the angel of high thoughts, that inspires us with the power of sacrifice.--Mazzini.

Poetry is the music of thought, conveyed to us in the music of language.--Chatfield.

The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another, and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is imagination, and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the cause.--Shelley.

Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.--Pope.

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which he himself could never hope to hear.--Ruskin.

Thought in blossom.--Bishop Ken.

It is a ruinous misjudgment, too contemptible to be asserted, but not too contemptible to be acted upon, that the end of poetry is publication.--George MacDonald.

Wisdom married to immortal verse.--Wordsworth.

By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors.--Macaulay.

Thoughts, that voluntary move harmonious numbers.--Milton.

The world is so grand and so inexhaustible that subjects for poems should never be wanted. But all poetry should be the poetry of circumstance; that is, it should be inspired by the Real. A particular subject will take a poetic and general character precisely because it is created by a poet. All my poetry is the poetry of circumstance. It wholly owes its birth to the realities of life.--Goethe.

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument.--Joubert.

Perhaps there are no warmer lovers of the muse than those who are only permitted occasionally to gain her favors. The shrine is more reverently approached by the pilgrim from afar than the familiar worshiper. Poetry is often more beloved by one whose daily vocation is amid the bustle of the world. We read of a fountain in Arabia upon whose basin is inscribed, "Drink and away;" but how delicious is that hasty draught, and how long and brightly the thought of its transient refreshment dwells in the memory!--Tuckerman.

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.--Izaak Walton.